Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family, Especially WilliamThis story of the first love experience of William Sylvanus Baxter shows an insight into the emotions and mental processes of the adolescent boy. |
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afternoon anyway apple sauce asked Baxter laughed began Clem Clematis clo'es clothes cried dance dolluhs door dress-suit exclaimed eyes face Fanny father feet Flopit gaze glance goin guess hand head hear heard Ickle Boy Baxter Jane Jane's Joe Bullitt Johnnie Watson kind knew lady last waltz little girl Little Sweetheart Lola look mamma married Mary Randolph mind Miss Boke Miss Parcher Miss Pratt mother murmured never night One-eye Beljus papa papa's party passed paused porch powdered sugar pretty Rannie seemed seventeen Silly Bill sissa sixty cents somep'm step stood suit Sweet land Sydney Carton talk tell there's thing thought thyou tis of thee told town turned uttered voice walked walkin Wallace Banks What's whispered Will-ee William Sylvanus Baxter Willie Willie's window words yard Ye gods Yes'm young
Popular passages
Page 182 - It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done ; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
Page 8 - MILADY I do not know her name Though it would be the same Where roses bloom at twilight And the lark takes his flight It would be the same anywhere Where music sounds in air I was never introduced to the lady So I could not call her Lass or Sadie So I will call her Milady By the sands of the sea She always will be Just Milady to me.
Page 201 - ... never came in the evening, an' now they're goin' to have this party, an' she says he's been gettin' paler and paler every day since he heard about it. Mamma says he's pale some because Miss Pratt's goin' away, but she thinks it's a good deal more because, well, if he would wear those evening clo'es just to go callin', how would it be to go to that party an
Page 58 - Love," William continued, his voice lifting and thrilling to the great theme — "love is something nobody can ever have but one time in their lives, and if they don't have it then, why prob'ly they never will. Now if a man really loves a girl, why he'd do anything in the world she wanted him to. Don't you think so?
Page 58 - I think love is the most sacred thing you know there is. I don't mean some kinds of love. I mean real love. You know you take some people. I don't believe they ever know what real love means. They talk about it, maybe, but they don't understand it. Love — love is something nobody can understand unless they feel and — if they don't understand it they don't feel it. Don't you think so?
Page 210 - I guess he can wear the kind of clothes most of the other boys wear — the kind / wore at parties — and never thought of wearing anything else. What's the world getting to be like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can't have a dress-suit!" Mrs. Baxter looked thoughtful. "But — but suppose he felt he couldn't go to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy " "All the better," said Mr. Baxter firmly. "Do him good to keep away and get his mind on something else." "Of course," she suggested,...
Page 193 - Mill — in a word, they spoke of the beau monde. Genesis turned the handle of the freezer with his left hand, allowing his right the freedom of gesture which was an intermittent necessity when he talked. In the matter of dress, Genesis had always been among the most informal of his race, but to-day there was a change almost unnerving to the Caucasian eye. He wore a balloonish suit of purple, strangely scalloped at pocket and cuff, and more strangely decorated with lines of small parasite buttons,...
Page 195 - count o' havin' to have a 'nouncer.' " "A what?" "Fanny talk jes' that way. Coin' be big dinnuh-potty, an' thishere blue-vein fam'ly tell Fanny they want whole lot extry sploogin'; tell her put fine-lookin' cullud man stan' by drawin'room do'— ask ev'ybody name an' holler out whatever name they say, jes
Page 203 - Well, an' then he'd hardly ever get mad any more; he'd just sit in his room, an' sometimes he'd sit in there without any light, or he'd sit out in the yard all by himself all evening, maybe; an' th'other evening after I was in bed I heard 'em, an' papa said— well, this is what papa told mamma." And again lowering her voice, she proffered the quotation from her father in a tone somewhat awe-struck: "Papa said, by Gosh! if he ever 'a...
Page 227 - That's just what she said, an' here that's the very first thing I had to go an' do!" "Well, what of it?" Jane quieted down. The pangs of her remorse were lost in her love of sensationalism, and her voice sank to the thrilling whisper which it was one of her greatest pleasures to use. "Did you hear what a fuss papa was makin' when he was dressin